Leadership: Part 2 - Cobra Gold

I had just tilted the back of the driver's seat down in our LAV-25, laid back, and closed my eyes. Sleeping in vehicles isn't the greatest, but it beats sleeping on the ground. My gunner and vehicle commander had settled into the benches in the back for the night, and I was just getting to the edge of sleep when I heard voices outside. So did the guys in the back. We popped open the hatches to see what was going on...

A Little Background

Cobra Gold is an annual multinational joint military exercise that takes place in Thailand. For this particular Cobra Gold in the mid 1990s, I and some of my fellow Marines had flown to Okinawa to participate. We were assigned two LAV-25s and had a few days to prep them for the journey.

(The picture at the top of this article is from Cobra Gold 2024 and shows the LAV-25. It's good to see my beloved Marine Corps is still using the LAV system. The Corps is the only branch of the military that passed its audit last year, and I suspect it's because we use things for a really long time. The term "serviceable" has special meaning to us.)

After some serious work to get these two beasts ready to ride, I had the pleasure of driving one of them across the Okinawan countryside, pretending to understand Japanese traffic rules. Our objective was a staging area near a pier, where we would load the vehicles aboard ship the next day.

We made it to the staging area in the late evening, grabbed some yakisoba from a little vendor shack nearby, and buttoned up for the night. Apparently the Navy doesn't like to load ships at night for some reason.

The Captain

Back to the story...

We popped open the hatches to see what was going on. There was a young Marine captain there in the waning light, going from vehicle to vehicle, making sure everyone had been fed. It turned out he would be our detachment officer, though we hadn't met him until that moment.

To my young Marine Corps mind, this captain made a helluva first impression. He could have called a formation and given a speech. Instead, he recognized that we were settling down for the night and his only objective that night was to make sure we were taken care of.

A week or so later, we had sailed to Thailand and were coming ashore. If you haven't seen Marines go from ship to shore, we do it in style. Some poor suckers have to ride in AMTRACs (Amphibious tracked landing vehicle), sucking diesel fumes. The LAVs, though, ride on LCACs (hovercraft) and make a grand entrance. The LCAC's rides across the water, laden with vehicles, and glides right up onto the beach. Its ramp drops as soon as it stops, and the LAV drivers like me hit the gas and drive right over the beach, sand spinning from our wheels as we go.

(Okay, while some of that is showmanship, if you don't hit the sand fast and keep your foot on the gas, you will get stuck in the sand.)

After our dramatic entrance for that Cobra Gold, we set up camp. "Camp" for our detachment was pretty much a large canvas tent with cots and mosquito netting. Each morning ashore started with PT, and this young captain led PT, including the formation runs. At the end of some runs, after he got to know our detachment a little better, he would race the fastest, fittest guys on the beach.

It's funny, almost 30 years later, I don't remember that captain giving us much instruction, nor did he give speeches to the detachment as a whole. I remember he would make a few comments here and there, maybe a motivational thought or a joke, but we had work to do and he stayed out of our way.

Respect

Why is it, after all this time, when I think of the best leaders I've ever known, that I think of this man? I honestly can't recall his name, but I remember him. I think it's because he earned my respect.

(I've heard people say they demand respect. I'm sorry, but that's garbage. Respect, like trust, is earned.)

As I reflect on it, I think that earning respect is the first requisite trait of leadership. You can have a manager you don't respect. You cannot have a leader you don't respect. We'll return to leadership traits later in this series.

Next Time

In my next article, I'll talk about the conundrum of being a leader and a manager at the same time.

If you are interested in my other articles in this series, you can find them indexed at the bottom of my preface article: Part 0 - Preface